A council leader has gone online to apologise to residents over chaos caused by a reorganisation of bin collections.

Richard Cornelius, leader of Barnet Council in north London, said in a YouTube video: 'I would like to apologise to the people who have been inconvenienced in the borough'.

He said the council had now 'turned a corner' and was working hard to fix the problems.

It follows complaints that some residents had not had a collection since the beginning of November when crews were allocated new routes.

One resident in the Tory-run borough which has hit the headlines over its radical privatisation initiatives, said online: 'Roads have been clogged in rush hour by bin lorries, pavements littered with wheelie bins left out and overflowing.'

In the video Cllr Cornelius says: 'We’re working to get it right and I believe we have turned a corner and that we will start to start to see an improvement in the service this week.

'We had to do this because it's not been done for many, many years and it's simply become unfair in the way the work was allocated between various crews.

'We make 359,000 collections of bins every week, it's a huge number, but even a small percentage can have a huge impact on people.

'We're working hard to get it right and I believe we've turned a corner now.'